So, seeing this topic show up in a recent forum post motivated me to clear it up for others who may have read over the erroneous (incorrect) information in hopes that it doesn't spread and leave more players using wrong info in their gameplay and to help players who otherwise didn't know or see that post.
Ordnance (bombs or rockets) will usually will add a speed penalty to your aircraft. There is no longer a maneuverability penalty to adding rockets or bombs. If you equip bombs and/or rockets, your plane's maximum cruise and boost speeds will be decreased.
There is NO way to remove the speed penalty to your aircraft once you enter the match. Firing the rockets or dropping the bombs will NOT improve your maximum speed (or acceleration, if that's also affected). So, even when you have no ordnance on your aircraft during the "reloading" time period, you STILL CONTINUE TO SUFFER THE DECREASE TO MAXIMUM SPEED as though you had the ordnance under your wings.
Again, there is no penalty to handling/maneuvering for equipping rockets or bombs. So, dropping bombs and firing off rockets WILL NOT improve maneuverability.
Your acceleration may also decrease, although this is a hidden stat so it's not player testable and I can't confirm. The game does still have the hidden stats of acceleration and aircraft weight. Aircraft weight does affect acceleration. The ordnance not affecting handling is odd because weight should affect handling which means that there might not be a negative impact on acceleration. So, it's a guess whether ordnance weight affects acceleration or not since ordnance weight doesn't affect handling. The ordnance may simply weigh "zero" in the game code and the speed reduction is just an applied stat instead of a calculation.
The player that I saw post these misconceptions was probably doing so based on his Beta and 1.x experience where ordnance DID affect speed AND handling and DID drop the speed/handling penalty when the ordnance was dropped/fired off of the aircraft. This changed when 2.0 game mode added the "ordnance reload" feature for bombs and rockets. Now, once you load ordnance and enter a match, you are stuck with that speed penalty.
If you don't like the speed penalty of equipping bombs or rockets, don't load bombs or rockets because there's no way to get that speed penalty off your plane during a match. You will play the entire match with the speed penalty derived from loading that ordnance, even when the ordnance is in it's "reloading" phase.
There is no noticeable stat or ingame penalty to maneuvering for equipping bombs and rockets. (Probably as a trade-off for being stuck with the speed penalty in 2.0.)
The exception to the rule of ordnance adding a speed penalty is for planes with an internal bomb bay. They can load bombs without incurring a speed penalty (this includes bombers and some heavy fighters). Some ground attack planes can also equip some of their bombs (even external) without a speed penalty.
There is an equipment available "Aerodynamic Pylons" which can reduce the negative impact of the speed penalty to loading ordnance. The reduction to the ordnance speed penalty is minimal and you don't get back much speed, in my experience. But, it's something to look into (if the plane offers the equipment slot) for the goobs who insist on putting bombs on fighters.